I need some C8 troubleshooting help with MATE.
I'm building a ZFS storage server with a SuperMicro H11SSL motherboard, EPYC 7232 CPU, and 32 GB ECC SDRAM. I installed CentOS 8.1.1911 from the iso as soon as it was released. I'm using the on-board ASPEED VGA video. I installed MATE v1.22 from https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/stenstorp/MATE/. The following packages are installed:
libmateweather-data-1.24.0-2.el8.noarch libmatemixer-1.24.0-1.el8.x86_64 mate-desktop-libs-1.24.0-3.el8.x86_64 mate-terminal-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-themes-3.22.21-1.el8.noarch mate-panel-libs-1.22.2-1.el8.x86_64 mate-desktop-1.24.0-3.el8.x86_64 mate-settings-daemon-1.22.1-2.el8.x86_64 mate-polkit-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-notification-daemon-1.22.1-1.el8.x86_64 mate-media-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-power-manager-1.22.2-1.el8.x86_64 mate-system-log-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 libmateweather-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 libmatekbd-1.24.0-1.el8.x86_64 mate-utils-common-1.22.2-2.el8.noarch mate-disk-usage-analyzer-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-user-guide-1.24.0-1.el8.noarch mate-menus-preferences-category-menu-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-dictionary-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-menus-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-session-manager-1.24.0-1.el8.x86_64 mate-backgrounds-1.24.0-1.el8.noarch mate-search-tool-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-panel-1.22.2-1.el8.x86_64 mate-system-monitor-1.24.0-1.el8.x86_64 mate-applets-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-control-center-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-icon-theme-1.24.0-1.el8.noarch mate-control-center-filesystem-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-menus-libs-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-user-admin-1.5.1-3.el8.x86_64 mate-calc-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-screenshot-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-screensaver-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64
About two weeks ago following a reset, after a normal login an incomplete MATE desktop appeared. The background is black. There is no visible mouse, although there is some ghostly pixel movement in the top toolbar when what should be the mouse cursor floats over each of those toolbar icons. I can hit Enter and start whatever app the ghost cursor is over, and the mouse works only within that app's window.
I'm a long-time user of MATE ever since GNOME3 was released, but until now I've never had any problems with it. I have no idea where to start troubleshooting. I've looked in journalctl, systemctl, and dmesg, but found nothing obvious. There's nothing in the MATE wiki to help.
I'm open to any suggestions where to start looking.
--Doc Savage Fairview Heights, IL
Are there .conf files for the desktop?....what about logs?....something's got to be amiss somewhere....and Linux always complains when it is.....in logs. Just wondering out loud...
On Mon, May 4, 2020, 9:51 PM Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS < centos@centos.org> wrote:
I need some C8 troubleshooting help with MATE.
I'm building a ZFS storage server with a SuperMicro H11SSL motherboard, EPYC 7232 CPU, and 32 GB ECC SDRAM. I installed CentOS 8.1.1911 from the iso as soon as it was released. I'm using the on-board ASPEED VGA video. I installed MATE v1.22 from https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/stenstorp/MATE/. The following packages are installed:
libmateweather-data-1.24.0-2.el8.noarch libmatemixer-1.24.0-1.el8.x86_64 mate-desktop-libs-1.24.0-3.el8.x86_64 mate-terminal-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-themes-3.22.21-1.el8.noarch mate-panel-libs-1.22.2-1.el8.x86_64 mate-desktop-1.24.0-3.el8.x86_64 mate-settings-daemon-1.22.1-2.el8.x86_64 mate-polkit-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-notification-daemon-1.22.1-1.el8.x86_64 mate-media-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-power-manager-1.22.2-1.el8.x86_64 mate-system-log-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 libmateweather-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 libmatekbd-1.24.0-1.el8.x86_64 mate-utils-common-1.22.2-2.el8.noarch mate-disk-usage-analyzer-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-user-guide-1.24.0-1.el8.noarch mate-menus-preferences-category-menu-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-dictionary-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-menus-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-session-manager-1.24.0-1.el8.x86_64 mate-backgrounds-1.24.0-1.el8.noarch mate-search-tool-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-panel-1.22.2-1.el8.x86_64 mate-system-monitor-1.24.0-1.el8.x86_64 mate-applets-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-control-center-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-icon-theme-1.24.0-1.el8.noarch mate-control-center-filesystem-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-menus-libs-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-user-admin-1.5.1-3.el8.x86_64 mate-calc-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64 mate-screenshot-1.22.2-2.el8.x86_64 mate-screensaver-1.24.0-2.el8.x86_64
About two weeks ago following a reset, after a normal login an incomplete MATE desktop appeared. The background is black. There is no visible mouse, although there is some ghostly pixel movement in the top toolbar when what should be the mouse cursor floats over each of those toolbar icons. I can hit Enter and start whatever app the ghost cursor is over, and the mouse works only within that app's window.
I'm a long-time user of MATE ever since GNOME3 was released, but until now I've never had any problems with it. I have no idea where to start troubleshooting. I've looked in journalctl, systemctl, and dmesg, but found nothing obvious. There's nothing in the MATE wiki to help.
I'm open to any suggestions where to start looking.
--Doc Savage Fairview Heights, IL _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
On Tue, 5 May 2020 05:30:26 -0400 Eddie O'Connor wrote:
Are there .conf files for the desktop?....what about logs?....something's got to be amiss somewhere....and Linux always complains when it is.....in logs. Just wondering out loud...
What happens if he sets up a new user? Does the desktop work then?
On Tue, 2020-05-05 at 10:32 -0600, Frank Cox wrote:
On Tue, 5 May 2020 05:30:26 -0400 Eddie O'Connor wrote:
Are there .conf files for the desktop?....what about logs?....something's got to be amiss somewhere....and Linux always complains when it is.....in logs. Just wondering out loud...
What happens if he sets up a new user? Does the desktop work then?
Frank,
For some reason I didn't get Eddie O'Connor's message. If there are .conf files they're hiding pretty well. And as I said, systemctl -ex, journalctl, and dmesg don't show any errors. If you search for "troubleshooting MATE desktop" I think you'll be disappointed in how little help there is. I guess that's to be expected of a desktop that "just works".
Yours is an excellent suggestion. If the new user works, the problem would be a fault in my account's configuration. If not, then it's the MATE system.
So I created a new user "test", reset the machine, and logged into the MATE desktop as the new user. Unfortunately I see the exact same misbehavior.
I'm about ready to run "dnf erase *mate*" and try re-installing MATE from scratch from the GNOME3 desktop. Is that possible without ripping the heart out of C8 by deleting other critical packages?
--Doc Savage Fairview Heights, IL
On Tue, 2020-05-05 at 19:25 -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
I'm about ready to run "dnf erase *mate*" and try re-installing MATE from scratch from the GNOME3 desktop. Is that possible without ripping the heart out of C8 by deleting other critical packages?
I've attached a capture of "dnf erase *mate*" that shows the 104 packages that would be removed. It looks safe enough, but if there's a a better way to fix the problem I'd rather try that.
--Doc Savage Fairview Heights, IL
On Wed, 2020-05-06 at 10:26 -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
On Tue, 2020-05-05 at 19:25 -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
I'm about ready to run "dnf erase *mate*" and try re-installing MATE from scratch from the GNOME3 desktop. Is that possible without ripping the heart out of C8 by deleting other critical packages?
I've attached a capture of "dnf erase *mate*" that shows the 104 packages that would be removed. It looks safe enough, but if there's a a better way to fix the problem I'd rather try that.
Having gotten no responses, I'm about ready to plunge ahead and try removing MATE v1.22 with dnf, then do a fresh reinstall of all packages. However, I'm unsure about the safest way to proceed.
If you look at the listing attached to my last message, you'll see three different groups of packages:
Removing: xxx Removing dependent packages: xxx Removing unused dependencies: xxx
I don't understand the meaning of the last group of "unused dependencies".
Is there a manual, more surgical way to remove packages that won't rip the overall CentOS 8.1 installation apart? For example, is there a way (perhaps a for loop) that deletes only the first two package groups? All of those are from the COPR repository. Removing them should cause no problems. But the third group (unused) includes several @AppStream, @epel, and even one @PowerTools package.
Any dnf gurus please weigh in here.
--Doc Savage Fairview Heights, IL
On Wed, 2020-05-06 at 10:26 -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
On Tue, 2020-05-05 at 19:25 -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
I'm about ready to run "dnf erase *mate*" and try re-installing MATE from scratch from the GNOME3 desktop. Is that possible without ripping the heart out of C8 by deleting other critical packages?
I've attached a capture of "dnf erase *mate*" that shows the 104 packages that would be removed. It looks safe enough, but if there's a a better way to fix the problem I'd rather try that.
Having gotten no responses, I'm about ready to plunge ahead and try removing MATE v1.22 with dnf, then do a fresh reinstall of all packages. However, I'm unsure about the safest way to proceed.
If you look at the listing attached to my last message, you'll see three different groups of packages:
Removing: xxx Removing dependent packages: xxx Removing unused dependencies: xxx
I don't understand the meaning of the last group of "unused dependencies".
Is there a manual, more surgical way to remove packages that won't rip the overall CentOS 8.1 installation apart? For example, is there a way (perhaps a for loop) that deletes only the first two package groups? All of those are from the COPR repository. Removing them should cause no problems. But the third group (unused) includes several @AppStream, @epel, and even one @PowerTools package.
Any dnf gurus please weigh in here.
I'm not sure why dnf is eager to remove more than what you want. I think it's an option you can use to make it remove only what is required, and unused packages are not touched.
However, in such cases, what I did is: - check the yum/dnf log for which packages were installed by the time I installed something with lot of dependencies. Make a list of all RPMs. - use plain 'rpm -e --test <list>' and see what it does. - if okay remove '--test' and remove the RPMs.
Regards, Simon
On Thu, 2020-05-14 at 08:18 +0200, Simon Matter wrote:
On Wed, 2020-05-06 at 10:26 -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
On Tue, 2020-05-05 at 19:25 -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
I'm about ready to run "dnf erase *mate*" and try re-installing MATE from scratch from the GNOME3 desktop. Is that possible without ripping the heart out of C8 by deleting other critical packages?
I've attached a capture of "dnf erase *mate*" that shows the 104 packages that would be removed. It looks safe enough, but if there's a a better way to fix the problem I'd rather try that.
Having gotten no responses, I'm about ready to plunge ahead and try removing MATE v1.22 with dnf, then do a fresh reinstall of all packages. However, I'm unsure about the safest way to proceed.
If you look at the listing attached to my last message, you'll see three different groups of packages:
Removing: xxx Removing dependent packages: xxx Removing unused dependencies: xxx
I don't understand the meaning of the last group of "unused dependencies".
Is there a manual, more surgical way to remove packages that won't rip the overall CentOS 8.1 installation apart? For example, is there a way (perhaps a for loop) that deletes only the first two package groups? All of those are from the COPR repository. Removing them should cause no problems. But the third group (unused) includes several @AppStream, @epel, and even one @PowerTools package.
Any dnf gurus please weigh in here.
I'm not sure why dnf is eager to remove more than what you want. I think it's an option you can use to make it remove only what is required, and unused packages are not touched.
However, in such cases, what I did is:
- check the yum/dnf log for which packages were installed by the time
I installed something with lot of dependencies. Make a list of all RPMs.
- use plain 'rpm -e --test <list>' and see what it does.
- if okay remove '--test' and remove the RPMs.
Regards, Simon
Simon,
I took the "dnf erase *mate*" output list and removed everything but the package names. This gave me a 104 package list "trial.txt". With that I built a for loop at the command line:
# for i in `cat trial.txt`
do rpm -e --test $i done
I've attached the list of all packages identified by the original "dnf erase *mate*" exercise. This took a lot of manual editing to strip out all but the package names to get the list file trial.txt.
Using that in the for loop I captured the output in trial-output.txt. This will take me some tedious cross checking to make sure only the packages in trial.txt are affected.
--Doc Savage Fairview Heights, IL
On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 05:24:13AM -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
On Thu, 2020-05-14 at 08:18 +0200, Simon Matter wrote:
On Wed, 2020-05-06 at 10:26 -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
On Tue, 2020-05-05 at 19:25 -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
I'm about ready to run "dnf erase *mate*" and try re-installing MATE from scratch from the GNOME3 desktop. Is that possible without ripping the heart out of C8 by deleting other critical packages?
I've attached a capture of "dnf erase *mate*" that shows the 104 packages that would be removed. It looks safe enough, but if there's a a better way to fix the problem I'd rather try that.
Having gotten no responses, I'm about ready to plunge ahead and try removing MATE v1.22 with dnf, then do a fresh reinstall of all packages. However, I'm unsure about the safest way to proceed.
If you look at the listing attached to my last message, you'll see three different groups of packages:
Removing: xxx Removing dependent packages: xxx Removing unused dependencies: xxx
I don't understand the meaning of the last group of "unused dependencies".
As I understand them, dependent packages are dependent on MATE. If MATE goes away they are useless.
Dependencies are packages MATE is dependent upon. Other things may also be dependent on those packages.
Unused dependencies are things that if MATE were removed have no other packages dependent on them. So MAYBE they are no longer needed and can be removed.
But be careful with these. Nothing may depend upon them, but you may use them. First in your list is ImageMagick. You may use this whether MATE is there or not.
The "--noautoremove option prevents removal of "unused dependencies". You can then take your list and see which you really don't need and remove them separately.
Jon
On Thu, 2020-05-14 at 16:12 -0400, Jon LaBadie wrote:
On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 05:24:13AM -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
If you look at the listing attached to my last message, you'll see three different groups of packages:
Removing: xxx Removing dependent packages: xxx Removing unused dependencies: xxx
I don't understand the meaning of the last group of "unused dependencies".
As I understand them, dependent packages are dependent on MATE. If MATE goes away they are useless.
Dependencies are packages MATE is dependent upon. Other things may also be dependent on those packages.
Unused dependencies are things that if MATE were removed have no other packages dependent on them. So MAYBE they are no longer needed and can be removed.
But be careful with these. Nothing may depend upon them, but you may use them. First in your list is ImageMagick. You may use this whether MATE is there or not.
The "--noautoremove option prevents removal of "unused dependencies". You can then take your list and see which you really don't need and remove them separately.
Jon
Jon,
You have nailed the obscure but critical element for removing a damaged MATE installation. The --noautoremove option made everything else possible:
# dnf erase *mate* --noautoremove --skip-broken
This removes all of the front line MATE packages and their direct dependencies. All are in the COPR repository.
I just ran that command followed by a fresh re-install of MATE 1.22 using the instructions at https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/stenstorp/MATE/.
When I logged out of GNOME3 and logged back in using the re-installed MATE, all is well again.
I think I owe you a beer or two Jon. Thanks very much.
--Doc Savage Fairview Heights, IL
On Fri, May 15, 2020 at 10:08:54PM -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
On Thu, 2020-05-14 at 16:12 -0400, Jon LaBadie wrote:
On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 05:24:13AM -0500, Robert G (Doc) Savage via CentOS wrote:
If you look at the listing attached to my last message, you'll see three different groups of packages:
Removing: xxx Removing dependent packages: xxx Removing unused dependencies: xxx
I don't understand the meaning of the last group of "unused dependencies".
As I understand them, dependent packages are dependent on MATE. If MATE goes away they are useless.
Dependencies are packages MATE is dependent upon. Other things may also be dependent on those packages.
Unused dependencies are things that if MATE were removed have no other packages dependent on them. So MAYBE they are no longer needed and can be removed.
But be careful with these. Nothing may depend upon them, but you may use them. First in your list is ImageMagick. You may use this whether MATE is there or not.
The "--noautoremove option prevents removal of "unused dependencies". You can then take your list and see which you really don't need and remove them separately.
Jon
Jon,
You have nailed the obscure but critical element for removing a damaged MATE installation. The --noautoremove option made everything else possible:
# dnf erase *mate* --noautoremove --skip-broken
This removes all of the front line MATE packages and their direct dependencies. All are in the COPR repository.
I just ran that command followed by a fresh re-install of MATE 1.22 using the instructions at https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/stenstorp/MATE/.
When I logged out of GNOME3 and logged back in using the re-installed MATE, all is well again.
I think I owe you a beer or two Jon. Thanks very much.
Great. But hold the beers. I had enough for life 22 yrs ago :)
jl
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Eddie O'Connor -
Frank Cox -
Jon LaBadie -
Robert G (Doc) Savage -
Simon Matter